 |
| From Echoing Visual Voices, Women's Caucus for Art |
Waste or want?
I'm living in the urban South this year. Our apartment overlooks a freeway viaduct that also doubles as a homeless encampment. The commute traffic wakes me before dawn each morning, as it does the viaduct dwellers. I often watch them climb out from their camp as I sip my morning coffee in comfort. A disjointed reality and reminder of the bigger picture beyond the studio. 
From my artist residency at Wildacres in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The studio was immense, the surroundings awe inspiring and the people absolutely wonderful and supportive.
Words have always meant a lot to me. I support my art practice by writing, researching and editing. These days though, words seem to follow me into the studio. Here you see studies for a larger, multi-piece interactive ceramic installation. Rather than indulge the delicate nature of ceramics, I want the viewer to interact with them, and in doing so, manipulate the original context.
.jpg)
Shine (7 of 87 Jobs American, Don't Really Want)
.jpg)
Stuck (5 Out of 87 Jobs Americans Don't Really Want)
The civilian body counts for the Afghanistan/Iraq War differ greatly. While reporting methodologies vary, controversy exists in the accuracy of the counts with some websites addressing this challenge with resignation: “That is the sad nature of war” (IraqBodyCount.org). Anniversaries are celebrated, monuments are erected, military sacrifices are commemorated, and yet often, the civilian causalities, particularly citizens of the invaded countries, are forgotten.
I was able to show my entire Love of the Game series for this exhibition at the Marin Community Foundation. On exhibit August 4 – October 9, 2008 at 5 Hamilton Landing, Suite 200 Novato, CA. That's my "Fat Boy" sculpture on the postcard. 
All the current pieces in this series, "Love of the Game" will soon be in together my studio to photograph before my installation in the Visual Impact exhibition sponsored by the Marin Arts Council and including recent Fund for Artists Grant recipients. More images soon. 
This is a great auction benefiting the West Marin Artists in the Schools Program that Dan and I have been very involved with over the years. 
I've been able to spend more time on this series of pull-toy bombs, (that clarification in case Homeland Security is reading). I find it fairly intense to work on them, given the irony vs. the reality. The more bomb sculptures that I make, the more real world models I find. I'
m thinking of making these until there are no more real ones being exploded, but I'm afraid I'll lose that game. Still, the meditation while I'm working on them feels right, something like a protest ritual.
My mother wasn’t much of a housekeeper and neither am I. Perhaps my fascination with these household cleaning items is rooted in my paternal grandmother, an Irish immigrant who worked as a domestic in turn of the century Philadelphia. These are very personalized tools. Individual textures, patinas and gesture keep me interested sculpturally. However, as I study the sculptural form of each, I find that apparent simplicity gives way to more complex underlying allusions. They have become domestic icons telling tales of hard work, traditions and habits. In an attempt to portray the commonality of these hidden histories, I consider the culture of work and the importance we give the universal tools of that labor.
